Beeswax Rendering

In May of 2018, I set up a small 2 beehive apiary in Mono, Ontario, Canada. My goal was simply to help pollinators and involved planing / restoring native wildflowers, assisting my bees as needed and getting back to nature. My goals did NOT include harvesting honey or beeswax...

But, Nature did what Nature does when you leave it alone... it took over and thrived. My bees filled box after box of honey, my queens produced strong, healthy offspring, and wildflowers grew wild.

In order to scale up this little project, I had no choice but to harvest a very small amount of honey (less than 1/8th). Furthermore, during my hive inspections, I collected a small store of burr comb (burr comb is the wax bees make within a hive where they really shouldn't, and in order to ensure no bees are squished as you inspect the hive, it's good practice to remove the burr comb as you come across it.) Finally, I also collected some wax when I installed a feeding inner cover upside down and the bees used the extra space to build.

So, with this small store of wax, I decided to try my hand at rendering it. I used a few methods and learned a ton.

Supplies:

Step 1: Cautions

Beeswax is flammable. Never expose it to an open flame.

Rendering beeswax can get messy so try to do it somewhere like a backward or a garage.

Melting beeswax can also attract bees and other insects, so beware.

It can be hard to clean things like bowls and spoons, so it's a good idea to use equipment you're dedicating only to this activity.

Step 2: A Thought About Bees

Bees work hard. A lot of people say they want to "help the bees" and then go and steal all their stuff, often times not leaving enough for the bees to survive on. I'm new at all this, but it does seem there is a very fine balance between helping and robbing from our little pollinator friends.

Consider, for a moment:

It takes 6 pounds of honey in order to produce 1 pound of beeswax

1 pound of honey takes up to 2,000,000 flowers and 80,000 kilometres to produce

Let's all take a second to process that.

Step 3: Equiptment

Beeswax... duh

A hotplate

Cheesecloth

An elastic band

Container or mold

Wooden Spoon (optional)

A safe, open, well ventilated space to work

Step 4: Melt in Water Method

For this method, I took all the wax and dropped it into a bowl, and then added a 1 to 1 ratio of water.

I used 2 bowls: 1 for the water & wax, and one I made a cheese cloth filter with by putting cheesecloth on top and securing it with an elastic band. The second bowl is what will filter the melted wax from all the debris.

Put the bowl on the hot plate and turn it onto a medium/low heat.

As the mixture heats, the wax melts safely. I got impatient and mixed it with a spoon (should have used a wooden spoon.)

Once all the wax is melted I poured the entire contents into the bowl that has the cheesecloth filter on top.

This is where you'll see all the gunk and "bee bits" that were in the wax.

Wax is less dense than water to the filtered wax will settle on top of the water. Once it's cooled you can pour out the water and decide what to do next.

For me, and as you can see, the cheesecloth didn't filter out all the debris, so I had to filter it again and chose the double boiler method (see step 2.)

Note: I have read that using tap water causes a chemical reaction with the wax and can create "mushy wax" or a discolouration. Something about the alkalinity in tap water, but I didn't notice that using tap water had any negative impact on my wax. If you're worried, it's suggested you use distilled water or, better yet, rain water.

Step 5: Double Boiler Method

So, my first method left my wax with a fair amount of debris, so, needing to filter it again, I figured I'd try another method.

To remove the wax from the first pot, I used a hairdryer to warm the wax and then easily broke it off and into pieces. I let the wax sit for a couple days so all the water evaporated off.

Once dry, I set up a homemade double boiler system with a big pot of water, a small grill to elevate my bowl with wax and then turned the stove on low.

It didn't take long for the wax to start to melt. Once melted, I had my other bowl ready, this type with a thicker layer of cheesecloth.

Once filtered, it was completely free of debris, so I poured the wax directly into molds.

Step 6: Conclusion

There's a lot you can do with bees wax. It's used for furniture polish, candles, rubs and, my favourite, waterproofing clothing. I hope to melt these back down and add in some other special ingredients and made a nice fabric wax for my camping gear.

This was my first time rendering wax and I certainly learned a lot. I hope you found my experience useful and if you have any experiences you'd like to share, please comment!

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17 Discussions

When we were in New Zealand, we got sone Maruka wax and use it for glassblowing. The jacks to shape the molten glass is usually waxed first to prevent sticking. Love how your wax came out so clean after the 2nd time

if you have a syringe-style printer (like the kind to lay down clay), you can wrap a resistance-wire laden silicone pad around it to heat it up and lay down the melted wax in trial and error method to determine the speed necessary to lay it down reliably.

Hey thanks! I realize I didn’t proofread and there were a few typos, but that’s ok. :) I was able to render 3 and a half of those little bars. I think that should be enough for some fabric wax... but I’m concerned that the beeswax smell will attract bees, which isn’t a bad thing, but probably not ideal as I’m camping or hiking... I’ll have to think it through as I really don’t want to waste this stuff. :)

Nice instructable. I have been a bee keeper for a number of years now, might I suggest you look into a solar wax melter to render your wax. It does a beautiful job, no heating elements to worry about. You can use a couple of "throw away" aluminum pans over and over and a piece of paper towel as a filter that can be used as a fire starter when your done. All with the power of the sun.

Me and my Dad started beekeeping this year (although my Dad is deadly allergic) and like you, we just want to conserve bees and not raid the hives.

We talked about what to do with the ekstra super we have on top and making wax was on the list somewhere.Now after I read this instructable I can say it is not on the list anymore, but on it way to production.Thank you.

P.s. If you have any tips on beekeeping please share, we want to grow our hives from 2 to atleas 15.

That’s awesome!!! Sounds like we are in the same boat! I’m also looking to scale up from my existing 2 hives to 10 next year. Stay in touch and we can share tips as we both learn! My beekeeping IG account is: https://instagram.com/garvey.farm.bee.yard